Simon Says Stamp | No Line Watercolor Roses – Inspired by Debby Hughes

Hello, friends! I hope you are doing okay today. I admit I was struggling with everything for the past few days. I cried a lot, I talked to friends, I had many of you reach out to me via email and direct messages on Instagram with kind and supporting words and it all helped. THANK YOU!

I’ve also found that watercoloring calms me down. I was very much inspired by a recent card created by Debby Hughes and reached out for my watercolors (I haven’t really used them in ages). I’ve never really done a proper no-line watercolor. I’ve watched many instructional videos, I’ve admired many projects, but I haven’t really ever truly tried it myself. Until yesterday. And I loved it.

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CARDS DETAILS

I actually started to work on this card by foiling several gorgeous frames using a new Glimmer Hot Foil plate from Spellbinders – Geometric Floral. I just wanted to have a bit of fun one night and I foiled this gorgeous frame (it is so trendy!) in various color foil on various colors of cardstock. I used one foiled on gold on white for this card and saved all the other foiled frames for future cards.

Next, I pulled out my Arches Cold Pressed watercolor paper pad (haven’t used that in ages either) and even my Distress ink! I can’t even remember the last time I used Distress. I remembered everyone recommends stamping images in Old Paper if one is to do no-line coloring, so that is what I did (after going rouge and stamping the same images in Fired Brick first, that actually worked too).

I managed to color a few petals immediately after stamping the image and because the ink was still wet when I was coloring, it blended together with my watercolor perfectly. I didn’t have time to color all the flowers that night, so I left the piece and came back to it the next morning. By that time the ink was already dry and it wasn’t blending together with my watercoloring. I didn’t like that at first, but it actually worked for the best later. I used just one color – Quinacridone Coral by Daniel Smith (the photo is deceiving as I have a Jane Davenport watercolor palette there, I didn’t use it, I only have it there for photo purposes).

You can see the watercolor leaves don’t have any detail in them, that is because I watercolored immediately after stamping these images and thus, the detail washed away. I could have colored the detail back in using a brush but decided not to do that. I used Sap Green color for the leaves.

I used coordinating dies and cut these images out in my die cutting machine. When selecting the stamp set to watercolor I specifically looked for one that had coordinating dies as I knew I’d want to cut these out and cutting out images from watercolor paper by hand is usually tricky as the paper is very thick (at least the paper I use).

I also stamped additional leaves in Old Paper Distress ink and cut those out without watercoloring them. I layered all of the images over my foiled frame (the panel was trimmed to 3 3/4 x 5″) and foam mounted in place. I also foam mounted the panel on the A2 Kraft card base.

I used several sequins and gold jewels from my stash to embellish this card. As for the sentiment, I once again used Simon’s sentiment strips – I’ve been loving those lately.

Anyhow, this was my first real experience with no-line watercoloring and I loved it. I’m very grateful to Debby Hughes for sharing her art and inspiring me. I look forward to doing more watercolor in the future.

Big hugs to you all! Stay safe and stay healthy.

SUPPLIES

I’m listing the products I used below. Click on the link to go directly to the product. Where available I use compensated affiliate links which means if you make a purchase I receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you so much for your support!

Simon Says Clear Stamps Beautiful Flowers Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamps and Dies Beautiful Flowers Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Beautiful Flowers Wafer Dies Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Sentiment Strips All Things Happy Shop at: SSS
Spellbinders Geometric Floral Glimmer Hot Foil Plate Shop at: SSS	Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil Roll – Gold Shop at: SSS	Spellbinders Glimmer Hot Foil System Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp White Cardstock 120 LB Shop at: SSS
Neenah Classic Crest 80 Lb Desert Storm Shop at: SSS	Arches Cold Press Watercolor Pad 9×12″ Shop at: SSS	Spellbinders Deep Sea Die Cutting Machine Shop at: SSS	Daniel Smith Sap Green 5ml Shop at: SSS
Daniel Smith Quinacridone Coral 5ml Shop at: SSS	Medium Water Brush Shop at: SSS	Silver Black Velvet Brush Size 2 Round 300527 Shop at: SSS	Silver Black Velvet Brush Size 4 Round 300541 Shop at: SSS
Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pad Old Paper Shop at: SSS	White Fun Foam 12 Pack 9 x 12 Shop at: SSS	Simon Says Stamp Craft Tacky Glue Shop at: SSS	Pretty Pink Posh Metallic Gold Jewels Shop at: SSS